Invitation to Martha's Vineyard

This issue of the Vineyard Gazette is an invitation particularly addressed to all those who have never visited Martha’s Vineyard. They will be welcomed to the Island this year, whether they choose to come for a weekend, for a real vacation, or for the entire season.

Martha’s Vineyard is easily within reach of the whole country, yet it represents an utter change of atmosphere and scene. It would be possible to travel thousands of miles without finding a spot so different from the populous parts of the United States and so completely unspoiled. The few miles of running sea which separate the Island from the mainland represent a barrier against all the subversive things, and against time itself. Past and present exist together in perfect harmony on the Vineyard, preserved in the eternal truth of salt breezes and warm sunlight.

To get away form things, therefore, this is the place to choose, and a year to choose it. Your first Vineyard vacation will be a wholly new experience, for there is no combination of landscape and seascape, exhilarating climate and freedom for recreation, like this anywhere in the world. You will find the Island disarming. There is nothing pretentious about it. Other than for board and room, either at a hotel or home, or for rental of a house and cottage and the bills for food (which is most likely to be sea food and fresh vegetables), you need have no expenses except those which you deliberately choose to incur. Mere subsistence is reasonable in cost and of a character to satisfy and to please. Beyond this, you are forced into nothing. Live as simple a life as you want to. There are no appearances to keep up. There is no salesmanship to resist.

After you have looked about the Island (and you can’t really finish looking about, even in a dozen whole summers) you will decide for yourself what you want to do. There are always dozens of opportunities near at hand, appealing. Some of them, and often the most precious of all, are free of cost. It is unlikely that you can find any characteristics Vineyard recreation which will make you think twice before you open your pocketbook. Swimming, sailing and fishing - this triumvirate of seaside diversions - are to be had in so many ways that no one, even in a year of great impoverishment, need deprive himself.

The Island is especially desirable as a vacation ground for families. Children of all ages delight in what is has to offer. For there are pure milk and water, sunlight in unlimited quantities, the salty atmosphere to put a zest even in the youngest constitution. For young children there are safe beaches of white sand washed by the gentlest of waves, and there are landlocked bays and warm pools; more than that there is room to play and complete absence of the dangers of modern life which worry all parents. Anxiety ends here. For older children there are boats of all sorts, opportunities to acquire self reliance in sailing and swimming, inviting paths for invigorating hikes. So it goes up the scale, even tot he human beings who are most advanced in life, who seek moderate activity or tranquility.

Martha’s Vineyard, in one sense, is a place of great distances and contrasts. The distances are in the sea and the sky, and they are always present, as inspiring as the sunsets after long days in the open air. The contrasts are between high cliffs and bluffs, level plain, and high hills strewn with rocks; between blue lakes nestled in inland valleys, and wide beaches shouldering the waves of the limitless sea; between deep woods and open meadows; between trim houses of whaling captains and modern homes and cottages.

But in another sense Martha’s Vineyard is intimate. All its phases are gathered together in a single Island, and you are in touch with it all. You have a chance to take everything in. Before you realize, you too are included, and it has taken you in, bodily and spiritually. And this intimacy includes not only the wonders of the Islands natural setting and the remarkable values history has given to the place, but the modern attractions and conveniences of neighborly communities, the relaxations of moving pictures and books, the fun of mingling with crowds in streets of brightly lighted shops on summer evenings, if you so desire.

This is not a year to go without a vacation. This is a year to make sure of change, relaxation and rest. Visit Martha’s Vineyard and let yourself be freshened for the comeback of the world.